U.S. patent application Ser. Nos. 10/429,930 and 10/429,932 are generally directed towards the concept of computer systems having auxiliary processing and auxiliary mechanisms, particularly display-related mechanisms, which provide some auxiliary computing functionality. For example, a small LCD on the lid or side of a laptop computer can provide its owner with useful information, such as a meeting location and time, even when the main computer display is not easily visible such as when a laptop computer's lid is closed and/or the main computer is powered down.
However, the usage of such auxiliary displays has heretofore been limited to narrow, limited operations in which a dedicated auxiliary display program is customized for the type of display and with respect to the information that is displayed. In such systems, the auxiliary display program is coded to the specifics of the type of display, such as the size and resolution, so that the program can output something that is readable yet fits within the screen area. This is unlike the regular computer system display, in which contemporary operating system components abstract from higher level programs the complexity and details of whatever specific video graphics adapter is installed. At the same time, dedicated auxiliary display code was a sensible solution, given that auxiliary displays typically have been two-or-three line text displays built into the hardware when manufactured, and all that was needed was to have the dedicated application write simple text with information such as a meeting time and the current time to the display.
One problem with the dedicated solution is that what is able to act as an auxiliary display is no longer necessarily a physically-dedicated device. Instead, as described in U.S. patent application Ser. No. 10/429,932, any device with a display that can interface in any virtually way with a computer system can potentially serve as an auxiliary display. Thus, for example, a mobile telephone, a pocket-sized personal computer or digital assistant can connect to another (e.g., desktop or laptop) computer either physically and/or via a wireless (e.g., Bluetooth) link, and if programmed to allow its display to be taken over by the other computer, the other computer can use the device's display as the auxiliary display. In fact, some portion of a desktop's or laptop's main monitor can serve as an auxiliary display. As can be readily appreciated, both the type of display and the available actuators (e.g., that allow scrolling on the auxiliary display) differ from device to device, and thus a dedicated program severely limits the usefulness of any such auxiliary display.
Another problem with a dedicated auxiliary display program is that only that program is able to provide information for display on the device. Although a dedicated program may, for example, be able to read information from an external source such as a compact audio disk currently being played, other application programs cannot provide their data for display unless such an application had intimate knowledge of the dedicated application program and the display requirements, and intimate knowledge as to how to make its data available to the dedicated program.
What is needed is a way for application programs that run under the main operating system of a computer system to provide appropriate data at appropriate times for display on an auxiliary display associated with that computer system, while at the same time allowing virtually any capable display, whether built-in as a dedicated auxiliary display or an independent device display, to serve as an auxiliary display.